Olympic coaches on the skids

When the 2012 U.S. Olympic Team gathers in Las Vegas to prepare for London, it will be directed by a head coach who lost in the NCAA tournament’s first round to Lehigh, an assistant fired by his NBA team after many players quit on him and an assistant who resigned because his NBA superstar didn’t think the offensive scheme afforded adequate scoring opportunity.

There has been no hint that USA Basketball won’t retain former Knicks coach Mike D’Antoni or former Trail Blazers coach Nate McMillan as assistants to Duke University coach Mike Krzyzewski. Neither did anything this season that merited the decisions that led to their removal from their respective benches.

Losing to Lehigh? Well, that wasn’t as bad as Team USA losing to Greece in the FIBA World Championships in 2006. Krzyzewski was in charge of that team, too.

Ironically, D’Antoni may have survived all the way to the conclusion of the final year on his Knicks contract had he not discovered that Jeremy Lin was perfectly suited to run the up-tempo offense that is predicated on player movement and ball movement.

It worked well when Carmelo Anthony was out, injured. Once Anthony returned, the movement stopped whenever the ball reached his hands. He broke off play after play to create his own offense.

D’Antoni finally had enough and stepped out of his way.

Why some of the Trail Blazers would quit on McMillan, one of the most competitive guys in the league, as both player and coach, always will be a mystery without solution.

“I’ve always felt when coaches get fired, it often has nothing to do with their abilities but a whole lot more to do with circumstances, which is unfortunate for coaches, but that’s usually the rule,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “All of us in the business know circumstances usually get us. It usually has very little to do with someone doing a poor job. That might happen once in a while, but that’s not the case here.

“I’ve been more lucky than most, as we all know.”

Mavericks future Hall of Fame point guard Jason Kidd said Popovich has replaced Jerry Sloan as the NBA coach most clearly in control of his team.

Popovich’s own character, not luck, allowed this, even as players have exerted more influence in recent years over player personnel decisions and coaching longevity.

“Everything changes,” Kidd said. “The game changes, so maybe players and coaches change too. Sloan was the ultimate blueprint of coaching, and Pop has now taken that throne in the sense that he’s the blueprint of demanding his players. From star to 14th guy, he treats them all the same.”

Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle is president of the NBA Coaches Association, so he takes every dismissal a little harder than most of his colleagues.

The mere suggestion the Trail Blazers forced McMillan’s ouster by quitting on him, or that Anthony’s clash with D’Antoni forced the coach’s resignation, is anathema to his very love of the game.

Don’t these latest coaching changes offer proof players now have power beyond the traditional player-coach dynamic?

“I don’t view it that way,” Carlisle said. “I view the game as a beautiful thing. To me, it’s all about a group trying to come together. I don’t get into the negative thinking aspect of it because that would taint my love and respect for the game, and I’m not going to do that.”